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In a long and eventually convoluted conversation on Twitter today, I asked Marc Andreessen some questions about his assertion on CNBC that Edward Snowden is a “textbook traitor” and that the Obama administration left the NSA “out to dry.” What began as a two-way conversation quickly become multidirectional. Here’s everything I could find from the exchange(s), though it went off on a number of tangents not captured here. (I’m updating…) The author of each tweet is the first person on the line (Twitter doesn’t offer threaded views, so it’s a bit of a mess): (UPDATE: GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram parsed the back-and-forth and came up with this take on it.)

@dangillmor @pmarca: Puzzled by your logic, @pmarca — are you more upset that US is hacking US-based companies to spy or that it was revealed to the world?

My perspective on Snowden is a little different than the perspectives I’ve seen here. My background? Radioman, USN, 1969-1973. I remember quite clearly that I wasn’t to talk/write about what I was doing, and how I was doing it. Then, in 1985, came the Walker affair.

And now this Snowden character. How can he possibly be trustworthy? After all, as part of his job, he did indeed promise to keep the secrets. Instead, he is in Moscow, disclosing more data, and probably means and methods to the Russians. So, is it treason? In my opinion, yes, it is.